Was President Trump actually ‘nasty’ to Meghan Markle?

The Duchess of Sussex will not see him when he comes to London

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Fight fight fight! That’s what everyone wants when it comes to Meghan Markle and Donald Trump. She is the new American member of the royal family, who is making monarchy woke. He is the president of the United States who is, er, Donald Trump. They seem destined to clash.

Thanks to Tom Newton Dunn’s big scoop interview with President Trump in Saturday’s Sun newspaper, the antagonism may have begun. When told about her remarks that he was ‘misogynistic’ and ‘divisive’, Trump said ‘I didn’t know that she was nasty.’

Modern attention spans being what they are, everybody will focus on that word ‘nasty’. Trump called Meghan nasty! He’s nasty! Fight fight fight!

People won’t look beyond to see what Trump also said about Meghan. He was in fact full of praise. He said: ‘It’s nice, and I’m sure she will do excellently. She will be very good. I hope she does [succeed].’

Trump is a keen monarchist — he takes after his Scottish mother in this respect — and he is eager to play nice with the Windsors. Will Meghan be so magnanimous in return? That remains to be seen. She is not seeing him when he comes to London — whereas the president will meet the Queen, Prince Charles, and Prince William and Kate. Meghan has just had a baby, and deserves all the rest a new mother can have, but Cockburn can’t help but feel that if the American president were still Barack Obama, Meghan might have summoned up the energy to see him. She is pals with Michelle Obama, Barack’s wife, after all.